Make Europe Great Again
PIVOT OR DEATH! Future of the Euro. Trading the Bounce.
“Within our mandate, the ECB is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro. And believe me, it will be enough.”
—Mario Draghi, 2012
"There is a risk our Europe could die. We are not equipped to face the risks.”
—Emanuel Macron, 2024
My work on Europe etc.
First Exit? ✍️
Reading Time: 16 minutes.
I expand on my thoughts on Europe’s decline, what I see as requirements to halt the decline, how I see the future unfolding and how I plan to play it. 3,500 words.
The EUR/USD is at 1.03 and awfully close to parity once again. Europe’s short-term solutions were proven to be just that — short term.
The problems Europe faces are complex and multi-layered, and in this piece we will attempt at isolating them one by one, looking into how they relate to each other and discuss potential scenaria for solutions and how this could play out.
We will continue where we left off, starting from post-Ukraine invasion times where things blew up — mostly in Europe’s face.
Where are we now?
Europe today is like a ship without a captain. We know this because the ship is sailing to nowhere and there is no captain (i.e. political leader) to change its course.
Macron has taken stabs at proclaiming grand ideals and a change of course, but that was probably an attempt to reset his chances of being re-elected while those ideals did not gain enough momentum to make a difference.
This is probably because in one part, those kinds of political speeches are labelled as alarmist and in the other part everyone knows the EU is dying but they are too focused on their own countries to do something about it.
Could that be another EU structural flaw? That the de facto leader of Europe could have conflicts of interest with Europe itself?
The President of the US technically has one country to run, while a political leader in the EU has his own country to run plus politics at the European level.
At the same time, the President of the European Commission is a European national (German, currently), is not voted by the European people but by MEPs — and is mainly focused in spreading her own agenda across Europe while paving the way for future personal arrangements to accommodate herself after she has left the Presidency… Future of the EU be damned!
Granted, politics isn’t perfect in the US or anywhere else for that matter — but the EU is on another level of imperfection.
European politics are further complicated by US involvement in European affairs, mostly to promote their own interests and keep the trading bloc on a leash lest it veers off course and causes problems to American global hegemony.
Yeah, I said it.
The Americans seem to not care that the EU is going through a serious existential crisis with possibly terminal outcomes, at all.
But Europe, if you don’t care for your own self, why do you expect others to care for you?
Europa is losing competitiveness, morale, prestige and her position on the global stage. The Americans need her to guard their interests while the Eastern bloc needs her to promote their own.
The Europeans themselves deep down still believe that they are peak civilisation and that they deserve everything while they still “bank” on the same things they had a century ago.
The results of all this is increased social and political turmoil, changes beneath and above the surface across the Union and a political-ruling class unable not only to keep up with the goings but to rule its people at a basic level.
The results of all this are obvious.
Europe’s challenges span both tangible and intangible — in the former, serious economic and structural issues and in the latter, more abstract cultural, social, political and moral dynamics that albeit result in tangible problems.
The Eurozone economy faces sluggish growth, persistent inflation, and uneven development across member states. The European Central Bank (ECB) finds itself constrained and limited, unable to address the diverse economic realities of its members with a one-size-fits-all monetary policy. Besides, this was one of the EU’s flaws from the outset.
Politically, the EU is increasingly divided. This plays out on the global stage where Europe’s influence is practically inexistent — stuck between the West and the East.
The EU’s inability to project a united front has diminished its influence on the global stage.
Culturally, the sense of a shared “European dream” has faded. Many citizens see EU institutions as out-of-touch bureaucracies that impose regulations without understanding local needs.
Let’s dive in…